2016-12-12 General Committee - Attachment 1 to Item 6 - Biodiversity Assessment Report

                                                Noosa Biodiversity Plan – Biodiversity Assessment Report




                                                                                            Sunshine
                                                                            Gympie
                                                              SEQ                             Coast
         Clearing statistic            Noosa Shire                          Regional
                                                           bioregion                        Regional
                                                                            Council
                                                                                             Council

 Least Concern                             22%



Whilst the clearing of remnant vegetation has significantly reduced within the shire, the clearing of non-
remnant woody vegetation still occurs and is the main contributor of land clearing in Noosa (Figure 23).
This includes woody vegetation not currently mapped as remnant (contiguous remnant), regrowth
vegetation as well as scattered trees, which provides values such as landscape connectivity (refer to
Section 2.2), potential TEC (refer to Section 2.3), potential habitat trees and some threatened species
habitat (refer to Section 2.4.3). In 2009, the Queensland State Government introduced new laws to
regulate the clearing of non-remnant vegetation comprising of mature regrowth (High Value Regrowth)
across freehold and leasehold land. These laws, however have since been repealed and no protection
measures are currently in place to regulate clearing of non-remnant woody vegetation.

The majority of land clearing of non-remnant woody vegetation occurs within freehold tenure (Figure 24)
and primarily for pasture development (Figure 25). Clearing for settlement has gradually reduced as
Noosa reaches its planned population capacity, whereas peaks in clearing for infrastructure development
and forestry harvesting have occurred over the last 10 years (Figure 25). Yurol State Forest, West
Cooroy State Forest and Ringtail State Forest are currently identified as Defined Forestry Areas (DFAs)
and are actively managed and harvested by a privately owned company, HQPlantations Pty Ltd. All
harvesting is undertaken selectively and in accordance with all State and Commonwealth environmental
legislation as well as the Australian Standard 4780:2013: Sustainable Forest Management. This is to
ensure harvesting is undertaken in a sustainable manner and environmental and cultural vaues are
considered at all stages to minimise adverse impacts.

The following sections provide further details on the two main zoning designations where land clearing
predominantly occurs – urban and rural areas.




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